Podcaster: Dr. Al Grauer
Title: Travelers in the Night Eps. 149E & 150E: Half A World Away & Icarus Pays A Visit
Organization: Travelers in The Night
Link : Travelers in the Night ; @Nmcanopus
Description: Today’s 2 topics:
- Astronomers in Russia discovered 2015 LK24 with a telescope located near Mayhill, New Mexico
- In 2015 Icarus made a relatively close approach to Earth at which point it was about 21 times the distance to our Moon from us.
Bio: Dr. Al Grauer is currently an observing member of the Catalina Sky Survey Team at the University of Arizona. This group has discovered nearly half of the Earth approaching objects known to exist. He received a PhD in Physics in 1971 and has been an observational Astronomer for 43 years. He retired as a University Professor after 39 years of interacting with students. He has conducted research projects using telescopes in Arizona, Chile, Australia, Hawaii, Louisiana, and Georgia with funding from NSF and NASA.
He is noted as Co-discoverer of comet P/2010 TO20 Linear-Grauer, Discoverer of comet C/2009 U5 Grauer and has asteroid 18871 Grauer named for him.
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Transcript:
149E: Half A World Away
Using the long arm of the internet, astronomers in Russia are observing with a telescope located near Mayhill, New Mexico to discover solar system objects.
The New Mexico Skies Observatory, near the village of Mayhill, is located 7,300 feet above sea level and has world class, clear dark skies, ideal for astronomical viewing.
Recently, Leonid Elenin, a Russian astronomer, using the remotely operated ISON-NM telescope located at the Mayhill site discovered a new potentially hazardous asteroid. This telescope has previously been used to discover more than 1,500 asteroids and three comets. Leonid’s most recent discovery is a potentially hazardous asteroid named 2015 LK24. Amazingly enough, he made this discovery while sitting in a control room in Moscow.
This asteroid’s current path allows it to come about 1/3 of the Moon’s distance to us. The asteroid hunting community will need to keep track of 2015 LK24 since if it ever entered our atmosphere it would release 3 or 4 times the energy of the most powerful hydrogen bomb ever exploded.
In addition to discovering new objects the ISON-NM telescope is being used to determine the size and shape of asteroids by carefully measuring the light they reflect as they spin on their axis of rotation and move about the Sun. The size, shape, and rate of spin off an asteroid is the kind of information which humans need to prepare for the unlikely situation that a small body is found to be on a collision course with planet Earth.
150E: Icarus Pays A Visit
For 43 years after its discovery in 1949, the Earth approaching asteroid Icarus, was known as the object which passes closest to our Sun. It is named for a boy in Greek mythology whose wings of feathers and wax melted when he ignored his father’s advice and flew too close to the Sun.
Every 409 days Icarus makes a scorching approach to the Sun at which point it is less than half the distance of the planet Mercury from our star and is traveling at 58 miles per second. Icarus’s close approaches to Earth always happen in June at intervals of 9, 19, and 28 years.
In 2015 Icarus made a relatively close approach to Earth at which point it was about 21 times the distance to our Moon from us. It was bright enough to be spotted by a backyard telescope equipped with an electronic camera. It was also close enough for humans to bounce RADAR beams off of it. These data will refine Icarus’s orbit and may provide some images of it.
In its current orbit it never get closer than 16 times the Moon’s distance from us. This is a good thing since it is nearly a mile in diameter and is traveling at 18 miles per second relative to planet Earth when it crosses our orbit.
Icarus will make relatively close passages to Mercury in 2025, Earth in 2043, Venus in 2045, and Mars in 2074. Humans will need to keep track of it to make sure that its path in space is not changed by these encounters to make come nearer to our home planet.
For Travelers in the Night this is Dr. Al Grauer.
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
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